Collective Rights Management - Blind Alley of the Institutional Development?

The diploma thesis analyses the phenomena of copyrights and collective rights management. In the theoretical part, the proper methodological approach to the concept of the intellectual property is introduced. It evaluates different perspectives of the economics and law sciences. The practical part of the theses contains the concrete analysis of the adoption of the modern copyright law during the twenties and thirties in Czechoslovakia. The thesis identifies domestic and foreign interest groups that took part in the process of spreading and extension of the copyright law. It describes arguments that were used by the interest groups and the reasons why these arguments were broadly accepted by the public. The main conclusion is that the institutional economics and the theory of interest groups fully apply to the findings of the practical part of the thesis.